Grayscale Now Manages Over $2.2 Bn in Crypto Assets on Behalf of its Clients

2019-10-21

Digital Currency Group (DCG) subsidiary, Grayscale Investments, grew its digital assets under management (AUM) to $2.2 billion dollars cementing its place as the largest crypto institutional investment firm in the world. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) asset contributed to $2.018 billion of the total AUM amidst growing institutional interest in altcoin based trust funds.

GBTC AUM grows to $2 billion, holdings per share 108% up

In a tweet published on October 19, Grayscale shared the data on the market value of the crypto assets they were managing for their clients. The total AUM stands at $2.2 billion USD from 10 investment products tailored for institutional investors. The products include Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust (GBCH), Grayscale Ethereum Trust (GETH), Grayscale Ethereum Class Trust, Grayscale Horizen Trust, Grayscale Litecoin Trust, Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust, Grayscale XRP Trust and Grayscale Zcash Trust. Single assets products contributed to 99.1% of the total assets held by Grayscale with the sole diversified product, Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund, contributing less than a percentage of the assets.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) remains the largest asset held by the company breaking the $2 billion dollar barrier in Q3 2019. The fund has received inflows totaling to $255 million USD so far in 2019, representing a 51% increase across the same period in 2018.

The holdings per share for the GBTC asset stands at $7.74 USD, representing the year to date returns of 108% and a trailing 12-month return of 21.32%.

Ex-Bitcoin products cross the $100 million mark in AUM

There is increased investor interest in non-GBTC products as well, with Ethereum and Ethereum Classic funds collectively surpassing the $100 million dollar mark in AUM. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust, recently launched in June, has since seen explosive growth to $67.2 million with the ETC counterpart totaling $39 million in AUM. The report states the increased value of ETH and ETC assets may be due to institutional investor interest turning to non-GBTC assets.

Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap Fund holds a total of $21.7 million in AUM including assets such as BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, and BCH. Bitcoin dominates the holdings of this fund too contributing to $17.1 million (78%) of the total asset value. Ethereum comes in at a distant second with $2.2 million in funds placed on the digital asset.

Institutional investment in Q3 2019 at yearly high

According to the Q3 report released earlier in the month, institutional investment interest in Grayscale products remains high despite a slowdown in BTC’s price. Over 84% of the total investment in Grayscale products was raised by institutional investors in Q3 2019, representing a total of ~$300 million. This represents a joint quarterly high in the number of institutional investors – matching Q2 2019.

Institutions are in an accumulation phase as the price of Bitcoin heads towards its bottom following the current bearish trends in the market. Looking at the daily charts, the price of BTC/USD pair may be headed to the $6,000 region as a death cross forms on the chart. However, the long term prospects look extremely bullish for the BTC/USD pair hence the rapid accumulation stage by hedge funds and cryptocurrency firms.